It was an all out relapse.  All that avocado-lime-arugula-rabbit food bullshit — it was for nothing — my progress obliterated by a spicy cubano from Joe’s Burger followed by a late night Santa Fe gut bomb a la El Tamerindo. The burger was topped pretty creatively, though overcooked and a little dry, but the burrito was a shit show.   Filled with a forearms worth of super salty beef the tortilla was so flaccid it wasn’t discernible from the cheese adhered to its surface.  It’s past noon the following day, and that thing is still kicking my ass.   It’s time I start cooking for myself a little more.

To that end I hit up Penzey’s in Falls church to freshen up my spice pantry and also bought some staples from an ethnic grocery.   The plate pictured above should give you an idea where I’m going.  Instead of rabbit food this summer I’m fighting fire with fire  Who’s ready for some spicy Goan Shrimp curry ?

The last time I felt this way I’d eaten a Chipotle barbacoa burritto with extra sour cream for lunch, before eating meatloaf with gravy and mac and cheese that night for dinner. On my bike ride to work the following morning I was sweating fat while my heart pumped blood as viscous as 10W40. I needed relief; It was a food hangover.

The District’s current heatwave has spurred similar symptoms as eating anything fatty feels like an affront to my well being. With the mercury teasing triple digits a burger I ordered at the Hains Point Grill was a blanket. A recent order of chicken wings was eclipsed by its garnish of cool celery and at home my plans to make meatballs were thwarted by shoddy air conditioning and a desire for anything green.

Last night I finally gave in and made a simple sandwich of avocado and arugula dressed with lemon on a toasted and lightly buttered baguette. Acidic and filling while not feeling weighty the meal was a summer revelation for me. It only required 5 ingredients, minimally heated up my apartment and left me feeling healthful. Now I’m craving a summer of similar dishes requiring few ingredients and little preparation, that leave me feeling healthy instead of laden.

Here’s hoping the 5 or 6 readers who still come to my site can help me.  Any ideas?

Photo from Flickr user intangible

“Boy you simple!”

She yelled it often.  I was a simple minded, stupid, head in the clouds, simpleton according to Mrs. Nesbit.  Maybe I wasn’t the greatest Fourth Grade student.  I spent a lot of time  day dreaming, pencils turned airplanes while chalk clicked out a lesson plan.  But the stories I tell my teacher friends as an adult lead me to believe I couldn’t have been all in the wrong.

And yet the word simple still causes a strange ring in my head.  Even this morning when I learned the Lamb Dog I lusted over last night could be purchased at home with the simple swipe of my credit card.  Now simple joins words like balanced and clean to describe the foods and elements of cooking I’ve grown to love.  A smokey hot dog topped simply with bright and briny kimchee.  A black skillet of cast iron with runny-yolk eggs cooked quite simply in bacon grease.

So I guess she was right all along.  I am quite simple indeed.

Simply Sausage

3904 Ironwood Place, Landover, MD 20785

After hosting a chilly evening roof top curry dinner I recently asked a friend how many other people have cooked Indian for them.  The answer?

None

Really?

Really.

Not one?

Not a single one.

I was stumped — I’ve been making curry for years now.  A family Christmas dinner featured at least 10 Indian dishes, home-made breads and my own pickles, chutney’s and a pudding too.  Why am I one of the few whiteys that venture into the gloriously complex and robust flavors that make these dishes so addictive?

A curry my mother and sister made from a Martha Stewart cook book they claimed was too mild provided my theory.  In an attempt to simplify what was never really complex a lot of recipes replace 4-5 individual spices with curry and garam masala powders.  It’s the equivalent adding “Italian seasoning” to a pot of tomatoes in the hopes of conjuring the Old World.  The results can be good enough sure, but they’re lifeless compared to their scratch counterparts.

So that’s why I’m excited to see an article and recipes like these in the NY times this morning.  I’m glad Alex Witchel and his cooking guru don’t assume I’m a pussy when it comes to mixing spice.  If food writers published more recipes like this one and less assumed home cooks are too stupid to build these dishes from their core components I’m almost certain more of us would be cooking Indian — no great Indian cuisine at home.

One measure of a meal for me is the amount of time a dish sticks with you.  Not in the way garlic conjures pungent ghosts for hours on end, but the way food memories persist well after you’ve done the dishes and sent guests home.  I made Jerk chicken for a buddy maybe 4 years ago and I’ve thought about that meal every summer since.  But I woke up this morning thinking about last nights chowder.

I steamed a bag of clams in a cup or so of white wine and slowly decanted the liquids left behind, sand and grit be damned.  Flesh chopped and set aside, I added a few handfuls of coarsely diced red potatoes to my “clam juice” and set the sauce pan over low heat.   The potatoes softened slowly under the gentle simmer, soaking up the salt and brine.

In my soup pot I sweating a minced yellow onion in butter and rendered bacon fat.  Then added a little garlic, a bay leaf and thyme before a tablespoon of flour started a roux.  When tender, I added the potato mixture to my aromatics and watched as my soup thickened.

Some heavy cream.  My chopped clams.  Some parsley.  If only I’d had a little sherry for the finish, but some lemon juice would have to do.  Yeah, I’m still thinking about last night’s chowdah… It must have been pretty good.

Photo by Flickr user Ron Diggity

Everyone’s abuzz with Lobster Rolls coming to DC, and I’m starting to wonder if I’ve become a curmudgeon.  Don’t get me wrong I fucking love seafood salad on a buttered bun, maybe better than the beautiful crab cakes I grew up on, but a recent stop over in New Hampshire makes me think the Lobster Roll just don’t belong here.

On the way to a wedding last Fall I passed a dingy seafood distribution house and promised myself a visit on the way back.   Keeping that pledge I encountered a difficult choice.  A regular lobster roll was priced at $6.95 and “double stuffed” came in at around 9 dollars.  I asked the brace-face teenager working the counter what most people ordered, and followed suit with a regular.

10 minutes later I’m staring at a gargantuan pink claw protruding from a comparatively diminutive bun.  The thing was massive.   And it was good.  Turns out the double stuffed I didn’t order is really a double lobster roll — the seafood equivalent of Ye Old 96′er — and way more than I needed.   The small and meager roll I remembered loving earlier in DC quickly became a source of disappointment.  It had cost me 23 bucks.

A quick flickr search tells me I don’t have to worry about Red Hook Lobster Pound dicking me over with portion size but their website says I’ll have to part with 15 bones to enjoy the delicacy.  It’s still potentially the best deal in town, but it’s got me thinking…  In a food culture where all the twitterati and foodnicks are urging us to embrace local foods, why are we so excited to pay a premium for something that a few hundred miles away is commonplace?

Where the hell are the decent local crab cakes?  With the largest estuary in the US a few miles away and crab populations on the rebound you think I wouldn’t have to spend an hour on the red line to find a worthy specimen.  I guess it’s the proverbial grass is allays greener that allows cuisine from the Eastern Shore draws moths to the light in Manhattan while New Yorkers can attract press by sending DC a Lobster Roll.

I’d love the localvore movement to spur a resurgence in what was once a commonplace of my youth –  quality local crab cakes made with tons of Chesapeake crab meat — But while bartenders are spending 8 dollars to drink imports that go down like Budwieser I won’t hold my breath.  And in the mean time I’ll salivate over Red Hooks Roll.

Photo from Flickr user kthread

Competition is touching off fierce debates. What is real civet coffee, anyway? Does the civet’s choice of beans make the coffee? Or is it the beans’ journey through the animal’s digestive tract? Can the aroma, fragrance and taste of beans from the droppings of a caged civet ever be as tasty as those from its wild cousin?

Serious questions to ponder while drinking the worlds most expensive coffee.

It’s got to be six years ago that my friend and I found ourselves in a cab bound for Virginia after a long night in the District. We were so bombed I spent the next day in the same work clothes learning — for sure this time — I wasn’t in college anymore. Our driver was from Pakistan and the whole way home we prodded for late night recommendations that didn’t involve Taco Bell or  Papa John’s.  We wanted to know where HE went after a long night.  After a little deliberation he drove us to Kabab Palace in Crystal City.

Cabs clogged the parking lot as we made our way inside and ordered lamb, chicken and ground beef kabobs.  Flimsy salads discarded we gorged on grilled meat and curries doused in runny lime green raita and other condiments from the front counter.  When the heat wasn’t enough we grabbed extra minced chilies.  When the meat needed brightened we added a squeeze of lemon.  When we craved some crunch we fingered hunks of yellow onion.  It was the  taste and season as you go kind of eating I’ve since grown to love.  It’s also the night I learned to eat with my hands.

We went back a few times more and fell in love with the chicken karahi, but for years now I’ve always fallen back on what I think might be the best lamb for the money inside the beltway.   $9.49 for six or so hunks of tender lamb, rice, vegetables and freshly baked bread is a steal.  And while a preceding binge session at the Big Hunt is no longer required the toothbrush I bought on the way to work the next day is still in my office desk — just in case.

Kabab Palace

2315 South Eads Street
Arlington, VA 22202-2531
(703) 979-2200

My past weekend in DUMBO makes me feel like ships passing in the night with this blog.  I only wish the circumstances of my trip had been as sweet, but my family always seems to find the light in things and I ended up having a pretty nice time.

There were test recipes from the next version of Baked.  Ma Pow tofu and soup dumplings from Joe’s Shanghai, followed by cocktails with new friends at the nearby Apotheke.  I had perfect hash-browns at Pastis and after a little poking around figured out how to bring them home.  Cabs be damned I ended up walking from the Meat Packing District to Brooklyn on two separate occasions.

I know this is becoming a bit of a breakfast blog but tips for killer hash-browns are coming… Just as soon as I can dust off my camera.

Sometimes I really dig repetition.  I find rhythm soothing and like the familiarity of things that occur with some regularity.  It’s not that I want to go to the same bar every day or eat the same things again and again, it’s more of creating little traditions out of the seemingly mundane.  Think Thanksgiving with a higher frequency and a much smaller commitment.

Enter my new Sunday tradition.  When you have a doorman, all you have to do is wait till you hear that soft plastic muted thump at your door to know the Sunday NY Times has arrived.  That’s my cue to kick things off and I love to start with Django Reinhart.  It’s an old muffled and tinny recording from the 1930s, re-mastered and re-pressed maybe 20 years ago.  The sound isn’t great but the romance is.  I’ll put on a pot of water as Django’s epic guitar runs pour out from between this hiss and clicks of shiny black vinyl.  And when my coffees ready I’ll open the Styles section read Modern Love.

It’s a guilty pleasure indulging the love stories of other writers every Sunday, but it’s one I wont deny myself.  It sets the tone for my paper reading session, just like Django sets the tone for the next record — some days more jazz, some days Motown.  Some days I’ll read Modern Love and nothing else, and some days I’ll bang out the whole section before pouring over Travel, and then the Magazine.

My life was changed when someone told me the reason I don’t love reading the paper is because I start with the A section, and move towards the back systematically — the news is boring.  But take the paper apart prioritized and categorized by passion and art and soon enough you’ll start to crave it…  that soft plastic muted thump at the door.

I’m not much of a breakfast person, but on some mornings I’ll make something.  I use some Sundays to make ingredients that support other dishes like stocks, sauces and condiments.  By then I’ve usually switched to Rock and Pop or something that gets me moving while I’m cooking, or cleaning, or doing laundry.  But by then it’s not really tradition but more of doing whatever the hell I feel like on a Sunday.  The tradition is good coffee, Django Reinhardt, and Modern Love.  Every Sunday.  I kinda love it.